The interview explores the effects of the international financial crisis on the economy of Lebanon and on the Arab economies. It examines the channels of influence, whether financial or linked to the migrant workforce.

It criticizes the prevailing ambiance in Lebanon, full of autosatisfaction and mutual congratulations, whereas the availabe respite should be used to consolidate an already fragile economic and financial domestic situation.

The Lebanese public debt is put in parallel with the US private debt, the management of which has long been praised as exceptional, through successive deferments and constant accumulation, but also with the flood of violence launched by Israel against Gaza, to signal the blocking of the two states solution, that has been so long nurtured, conference after conference, without the decision makers daring to take, in either case, the choices they were confronted with. Read more →

Series of articles monthly published (in French) in “Le Commerce du Levant”

8 December 2009

Series of articles monthly published (in French) in “Le Commerce du Levant” and selecting, in each issue, a term of the economic lexicon that is first defined with its economic, financial and social importance evocated in general, and the outreach and stakes of which are then illustrated in the Lebanese case.

Synthesis document produced in the frame of the firm Oger-Liban in the beginning of 1986 on the reconstruction of Beirut Central District and kept confidential until now.

At that time, continuing the detailed studies and the field works had become impossible because of the deterioration of the security situation and the crumbling down of the state structure.

The document was produced to summarize and to preserve the amount of work produced by several teams of urban planners, architects, engineers and economists over more than three years so as to avoid their loss and the blurring of its main orientations.

The report presents the functional programming options for the Central District in relation with the idea of “recentering and reuniting the city”, it explicitly envisages for the first time the different legal structures available for the realization of designed objective and presents a detailed quantification and programming of the first phase as well as several scenarios for the further development.

Its reading is especially relevant in the perspective of comparing its programmatic and structuring proposals with what has become “Solidere”.

Research note presented to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN-ESCWA). It aims at setting a historical and economic framework for the debate on decentralisation and on the role of the finance of local authorities in the Middle East area.

It highlights the socio-political particular features of the area both internally (segmentation) and externally (the acuteness of the renewed confrontation between “the east and the West”) as well as the specific effects of the oil rents on socioeconomic regulation.

Framing document prepared in collaboration with the urban planner Ms Maha Yahya and “Information International” for the CDR and the World bank, in view of implementing a loan from the WB to promote the cultural heritage of five cities in Lebanon (Tripoli, Jbeil, Saïda, Sour and Baalbeck).

The report assesses the socioeconomic situation in the concerned cities as well as their assets in terms of cultural tourism and related activities, giving special attention to the distribution of interests at stake and to the consequences of the different possible forms of intervention.

The document became the reference for the later stages of the project that is presently being implemented.